Heroes Proved Read online

  As the black-hulled speedboat cleared the channel into Galveston Bay, it once again picked up speed. Fifteen minutes later it was off San Leon Point doing 45 knots through a light chop and an outgoing tide. By two thirty they were abreast of the breakwater north of Pelican Island.

  To avoid being challenged by the Coast Guard’s Vessel Traffic Center, they kept their speed down transiting the sea-lane south of Port Bolivar, but once they were abreast of the sea buoy, “Vargas” told the pilot, “Faster.” As the man at the helm pushed the throttles all the way forward and headed due south into the Gulf of Mexico, the killer flipped the dead police officer’s PID over the side. In the tiny cabin belowdecks, all but the man wrapped in foil began to retch as the boat pounded through the swells.

  An hour before sunrise, the speedboat pulled alongside a rusty coastal tanker, the Ileana Rosario, seventy-five miles south of U.S. territorial waters. A cargo net lowered from the deck of the larger vessel sufficed to transfer their aluminum-foil-wrapped cargo while five of the six men scrambled up a rope ladder lowered over the side—glad to be on anything larger than the black boat.

  After the others departed, “Officer Vargas,” flashlight in hand, went through the boat, looking for anything they might have left behind. Satisfied the craft was “clean,” he reached into the bilge, twisted a large valve, then hurried back on deck and up the rope ladder as seawater flooded the small vessel.

  As the rust bucket churned away to the southeast, the black hull sank in a thousand feet of water. By dawn, the only evidence remaining of the rendezvous at sea was a thin layer of high-octane gasoline seeping from the speedboat’s fuel tanks as they were crushed by water pressure. The rising sun quickly evaporated the colorful film.

  WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM

  1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE

  WASHINGTON, DC

  SATURDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER 2032

  0610 HOURS, LOCAL

  Houston Emergency Management Center is reporting that the hotel is now secure,” said Bill Vincent over the encrypted, secure video link. In the Sit Room, Ben Carver simply nodded. Seated beside him was General John Smith, the National Security Advisor. Smith arrived at the WHSR at 0233 from his apartment at the Army and Navy Club on Seventeenth Street—just two blocks from the Northwest Gate at the White House.

  At 0300—after Carver’s rapid-fire briefing—Smith called the president over the White House internal secure voice circuit. Then, at 0307, he ordered “Gateway”—the National Security Videoconference Network—activated and called for updates at the top of every hour. This was their third update.

  The Gateway network is officially described in U.S. government budget documents as “a contractor-provided and serviced, encrypted fiber-optic system to provide continuous, uninterrupted secure communications in the event of a national emergency.” It was originally constructed in the aftermath of the 9-11-01 terror attacks when conventional telecommunications services were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of calls—and tens of thousands of sensitive voice and data messages were intercepted by foreign intelligence services and hackers.

  Gateway links the White House Situation Room to operations centers at the Directorate of National Intelligence, the National Counterterrorism Center, Central Intelligence Agency, the departments of State, Justice, Treasury, Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security, the FBI Operations Center, the National Military Command Center, the Federal Aviation Administration, and Northern Command headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado.

  The Gateway network can also link the WHSR directly via secure audio, video, and data to any U.S. military or diplomatic mission overseas with compatible encryption software and the appropriate satellite communications antenna. In this case, the Houston EMC was patched into the network through the DHS Ops Center. In accord with protocol, only senior watch officers speak on the Gateway SVT network when a “principal”—in this case, General Smith, the National Security Advisor—is “on the line.”

  “Do we have any word on casualties?” Smith asked.

  “No final tally yet, sir,” said the DHS SWO. “There appear to be more than one hundred dead and perhaps twice that number wounded. Most seem to be at the NASA Hilton. From what Houston EMC is saying, there were a lot of first responders killed and injured by three explosions about an hour after it all started. It will probably be an hour or more before we have a firm number.”

  Smith continued with his questions: “Does anyone at DHS, DNI, NCTC, or NORTHCOM have any indications of radiological or biohazard release?”

  A chorus of “No, sir.”

  “Any claims of responsibility?” the National Security Advisor inquired.

  “Not that we have received at DNI,” Vincent responded. “We have NSA up on the step, as is the NGA [National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency] at Fort Belvoir. No phone chatter and nothing we have picked up on the MESH. Now that the press services have picked up on it, there are a lot of MESH bloggers, social-network types, and hackers speculating and making accusations, but nobody taking credit.”

  “FBI?”

  “We have no traces of anything but people speculating on the phone and on the MESH about who may have done this. We have no fixes on any group, domestic or international, claiming responsibility or any organization that might be in the neighborhood and able to pull this off.”

  Smith then asked, “Any confirmation that any of the VIPs from this upcoming energy conference were targeted? Have we located all of them?”

  Silence. Then Vincent at DNI spoke up: “General, there are a lot of people on this network right now. This is a very sensitive issue, and I think you and I—or perhaps you and my boss need to talk ‘off-line’ about this one.”

  “Hang it!” Smith exploded. “This isn’t time for playing games, Mr. Vincent. Everyone on this SVT has a ‘need to know.’ What have you got?”

  Vincent clearly looked uncomfortable, but he shrugged and said, “Yes, sir. Shortly after we sent out the initial alert on this event, the White House Sit Room asked us to track down the principals attending the upcoming Alternative Energy Conference at the Space Center. As you are aware, sir, international treaties, a UN convention, and our own domestic law all prohibit us from using PERT data for surveillance on law-abiding citizens. Government agencies are restricted from using PERT info for anything except border clearance, immigration enforcement, and fugitive apprehension—”

  Smith interrupted. “Look, Vincent, we all know how the system works—and that it can track specific individuals. We don’t need a seminar on international law or electronics at this hour of the morning. Get on with it.”

  “Yes, sir,” the DNI watch officer continued. “We have determined that only two of the people listed on the conference agenda were already in Houston. Both of them arrived yesterday and both were apparently at the NASA Hilton when it was attacked. One of them, Dr. Franklin Pfister from California, an expert on solar power, appears to be dead in the hotel—along with his wife and ten-year-old daughter . . .”

  The general was agitated and it showed. “What is this ‘apparently’ and ‘appears to be’ crap? Why are you hedging?”

  “Because we don’t have DNA or even a visual confirmation yet from the DPS, Houston PD, or the FBI,” replied Vincent, bristling in return. “As you can see from the Houston PD vid-feeds and the press cameras outside the hotel, they are bringing a lot of dead bodies out of there. A temporary morgue has been set up across the street at the Space Center to confirm identities. But we know Dr. Pfister’s PERT is immobile in a corridor of the hotel’s fourth floor—as are his wife’s and daughter’s.”

  Calmer, General Smith asked, “And who is the second VIP?”

  “Sir, it is Dr. Martin Cohen, a physicist at MIT. He—”

  “The Martin Cohen,” Smith interrupted. “The retired U.S. Navy admiral, Dr. Martin Cohen, who has been working on a high-power fuel cell?”

  “Yes, sir. He checked into the hotel yesterday afternoon,” said Vincent. “His PERT da
ta confirms he was in the hotel when the attack occurred, and according to the Houston EMC he had a PSD of off-duty officers from the Houston PD and the Texas DPS.”

  “DPS?”

  “Texas Department of Public Safety.”

  “Well, is Dr. Cohen alive? Is he okay?” Smith asked.

  “We don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” demanded Smith. “What do his PERT life signs show?”

  “Sir, his PERT signal stopped transmitting—or at least we stopped receiving his PERT geolocation and biometric data—at 0114 CST this morning,” Vincent replied. “His PERT transponder may have been damaged or destroyed in the attack. He may have been wounded during the attack and transported to a hospital, or he could be one of the deceased inside the hotel not yet identified. It is also possible that he, ah, er . . . escaped.”

  “What do you mean—escaped?”

  “Well, again, sir, we’re on the edge of propriety here, but—”

  “Vincent!” thundered Smith.

  “Yes, sir.” The DNI SWO plunged on. “As soon as we were aware of the attack, we tapped into the hotel security camera system and scooped up all previously recorded and real-time video imagery. We’re having our experts examine the imagery now, but it appears that shortly after the attack began, Dr. Cohen’s PSD may have escorted him out of the hotel via a fire escape—”

  “Good. So where are they—and more specifically, where is Dr. Cohen—now?” Smith interjected.

  Vincent swallowed and said, “We don’t know, sir.”

  Smith shook his head. Rising from the chair beside Carver’s, he said, “Send me all the imagery you have of Dr. Cohen at the hotel. Contact the Houston PD and the Texas DPS to find out where their off-duty officers are and tell them to let us know ASAP what they learn about Cohen’s whereabouts and condition. Have your boss call me in my office.”

  CENTURION SOLUTIONS GROUP OPERATIONS CENTER

  22570 RANDOLPH ROAD

  DULLES, VA

  SATURDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER 2032

  0630 HOURS, LOCAL

  Located 1.2 miles from the end of Washington Dulles International Airport’s Runway 1-Left, the Centurion Solutions Group (CSG) Operations Center is a sixty-thousand-foot, windowless, two-story, gray concrete-slab building, surrounded by a sixteen-foot-high chain-link fence. The entire structure is “TEMPEST hardened” with copper foil lining to prevent the “leaking” of all but intentional electronic emissions from the building. There is no corporate “signage,” only the street number—22570—mounted high on the wall facing Randolph Road.

  From the street, no doors, windows, or vehicles are visible—only an apparently unmanned security-guard station and a heavy rollback vehicle gate. A dozen high-resolution cameras mounted on the roof and atop tall “mushroom cap” poles cover every inch of the building exterior and the surrounding perimeter. Parking and building access are in the rear, out of sight to passersby unless they are willing to “break brush” east from Lockridge Road to approach the facility. There is no mailbox. Visitors are rare.

  On the recessed roof of the building are seven satellite dishes pointed skyward at various angles and direction, four 200-kilowatt diesel generators, eight water-cooled air-conditioning units, and an array of radio and microwave antennas. None of this is visible from street level.

  The interior of the building is divided into four functional areas. The communications center—lined with racks of electronic equipment, computer servers, fiber-optic switches, telephone circuits, radio receivers, and relays—occupies nearly the entire top floor. The ground level has twelve offices and a theater-style conference room with 150 seats. Forty feet below ground level is the CSG Operations Center, where twenty-four 5’x8’ wall-mounted sheets of plastic, less than two millimeters thick, serve as flat-panel holographic screens for the eleven watch officers standing duty in the temperature- and humidity-controlled environment. There are no wires or electric sockets inside the facility. All lighting and electronic devices within the structure are powered by electromagnetic resonance coils that distribute electrical energy wirelessly throughout the building.

  Icons on fourteen of the screens display geographic identifiers for every major U.S. government installation and military unit around the globe. Five screens provide details on the locations and assignments of CSG’s 5,327 employees, 41 offices and “training sites,” 65 “Centurion Aviation” aircraft, 7 ships, and 2,541 “independent security contractors” deployed around the world. One screen, in the center of the west wall, is a Mercator projection of the earth showing day/night, time zones around the globe, the tracks of debris from the original International Space Station, and all 779 operational and disabled satellites in geosynchronous and rotating earth orbit. Like all the other active screens in the room, it is labeled TOP SECRET/NOFORN. Only the four screens baring the CSG logo are labeled UNCLASSIFIED.

  In accord with a classified contract with the White House Communications Agency (WHCA), CSG maintains and monitors “Gateway,” the encrypted, secure video-teleconference (SVT) link connecting the principal departments and agencies of the executive branch of the U.S. government. Another of CSG’s many government contracts requires the company to “operate and retain in a state of constant readiness, no less than five robust, remote operating sites capable of maintaining world-wide executive branch communications in the event of a ‘decapitation strike’ on the Seat of Government.”

  * * * *

  When the National Security Advisor in the White House Situation Room ordered the Gateway SVT link opened at 0307 EDT, the communications watch officer in the CSG Ops Center manually activated the network by entering a password on his computer keyboard and pressing his right thumb against the “screen” for biometric validation. In less than a second, red lights flashed in a dozen U.S. government operations centers. Cameras and receivers were automatically activated in all of them as a computer-generated voice announced: “The White House Situation Room has initiated a secure video teleconference. Senior watch officers and principals only on this SVT. Please acknowledge.”

  At the same instant, on the top floor of 22570 Randolph Road, an automated digital data file began recording and time-coding every image and word spoken. Two stories below in the CSG Ops Center, the four screens previously displaying nothing but the company logo now showed the faces of the National Security Advisor and the others on the teleconference in a split-screen array.

  Whenever words were spoken in the link, voice recognition software in the computers on the top floor of 22570 Randolph Road digested every name and place mentioned, searching for “relevance” with other information stored in their data banks. When a correlation was found—as in the case of Dr. Franklin Pfister—the computer generated a message to the CSG senior watch officer:

  Dr. Franklin Pfister: Cal Poly [US]: CSG PSD 31074 dur visit to Brazil, 17–26 Jan 2031. State Dept Contract ESS DV5852G76. No Sig events. No subsequent contact. Retrieve File? Y/N

  Don Gabbard, Master Gunnery Sergeant, USMC (Ret.), the CSG senior watch officer, glanced at the entry and mentally noted that “CSG PSD 31074”—a CSG personal security detail, #74—had protected Dr. Pfister when he visited Brazil in January the previous year—all in accord with a State Department contract. Seeing no other information pop up other than open-source media reports about the alternative energy research he was conducting, Gabbard pointed a finger at the N on his computer screen and the entry disappeared.

  But a few seconds later, immediately after Bill Vincent, the DNI SWO, mentioned Dr. Martin Cohen of MIT, a new computer-generated entry appeared on Gabbard’s screen:

  *** ALERT ***

  SWO ACTION REQUIRED

  Dr. Martin Cohen: Prof. MIT [US]

  Admiral, USN (Ret.)

  Spouse: Julia

  Daughters: Janice, Juliette

  PROTECTED FILE

  PERSONAL/PROFESSIONAL FRIEND OF CSG CHAIRMAN

  NOTIFY CSG CHAIRMAN ASAP OF ANY SIG EVENT

 
; Gabbard quickly scanned two hundred more lines of public-domain information about Dr. Cohen spewing from the computers two floors above. He noted that Dr. Cohen was a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, Class of 1978, a nuclear submarine officer, and an expert on propulsion systems, now teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There were several press and MESH blog squibs about Cohen’s experiments with fuel cell technology. Gabbard then scrolled back to the top and took a deep breath.

  In his eleven years working in the CSG Ops Center—eight of them as a senior watch officer—Don Gabbard had seen the “notify CSG chairman” instruction pop up on his screen only once before. In 2025, when a preliminary DoD field report declared the CSG chairman’s son “MIA—Presumed Captured or Dead,” Gabbard delayed passing the information until after the Marine Corps made their official next-of-kin (NOK) notification. Though he and the chairman of CSG served together as Marines, the decision to postpone passing the information had nearly cost him his job. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

  Gabbard slipped his headset on and as he reached to punch the red button on the console beside the plastic panel that served as his computer screen, he glanced at the digital clock on the pane: 06:33:17 EDT. He listened as the phone rang twice and heard the electronic “ping” as the automated voice encryption engaged. Then a voice he knew well said, “This is Peter Newman. Go ahead, Don.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  DUTY CALLS

  NARNIA FARM

  1776 RIVER ROAD

  BLUEMONT, VA

  SATURDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER 2032

  0634 HOURS, LOCAL

  When the call came in from the CSG Ops Center, Major General Peter Newman, USMC (Ret.), was nearing the end of his morning ritual—twenty minutes on a NordicTrack elliptical exercise machine, twenty minutes of calisthenics and weights, and twenty more minutes on the elliptical. For a few seconds he listened to Don Gabbard’s verbal report over his PID’s wireless earpiece—then coasted the machine to a halt, dismounted, and walked across the room to a wall-mounted plastic panel displaying a digital photo of the Newman family assembled in front of a Christmas tree. The general touched the picture with his right index finger. Instantly the family photo disappeared, replaced by the live image of his former ops chief.